The children have been growing as writers through their exploration and reflection in the natural world. Following nature class in mid-October they responded to the prompt; show one way a seed can travel. They practiced using pictures and beginning sounds to share their learning of how seeds travel!
This week we drew like scientists. We carefully observed one pressed leaf (another gift from Chris Gluck!) and talked about what we noticed; thin lines, a curved edge, a stem. Then the children drew the details, like scientists, and added color.
Our work as scientists connects to our growth as writers and readers. We practiced sorting the Fall books we have been reading; Is it a teaching book or a storybook? How do you know?
Teaching books are books that teach you, providing information about leaves and Fall on every page. A storybook tells a story with characters, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end.
On Friday we read Zonia's Rain Forest. Zonia's home is in the Amazon rain forest. Zonia, like us, loves nature. She spends time with the trees, plants, and animals. Her forest, a rain forest, looks different than our Westford forest. Her forest and our forest are alive with beauty, animals, and life. Our forests are different and the same. Zonia is connected to her forest and we are connected, too. When Zonia notices that trees in her forest are being cut down, she shares the importance of listening to the needs of the forest. Zonia's story helped us to begin important conversations as scientists, artists, and explorers in nature while encouraging the learning of communities around the world.
Zonia said we must listen to the forest.
Why is it important for us to listen to and learn about nature?
BS- We need trees, trees make air for us to breathe. Learning about trees and nature helps.
IE- We need nature to live, honestly, we just need it. We can't cut trees down, that's really mean.
ES- We need to learn about nature to help us love it.
On Thursday we talked about a safe place for our scientific drawing and writing to live; a nature journal.
We collected sticks for the spine of our journals.
A book has a front and back cover and a spine holding it together.
This was a meaningful way to reinforce "book knowledge" as well as integrate counting and cardinality.
Before our collection; How many sticks do we need? 23! Why? We have 23 kids!
After our collection; How many sticks do you think we collected? 24, 23, 25...
How can we figure out how many? Count! How can we organize our counting? 10 Frames!
How many in all? 31- 10, 20, 30 and 1 more.
Our Nature Journals
No comments:
Post a Comment